South Africa: Zulus Urged to Switch to Fake Leopard Fur

[The Seeker]

5.6M-strong population urged to change its spots to save animals


South Africa's Zulu tribe is being urged to shed its customary leopard-skin garb for fake pelts in a bid to save the endangered animals.


Zulus, who are largely associated with the five-million-strong Nazareth Baptist Church are encouraged to wear the real thing by leaders such as South Africa President Jacob Zuma, according to Tristan Dickerson, a conservationist who studies leopards and is offering a fake version of the fur.


"I have used digital photography and imaging to produce an exact synthetic replica of a leopard-skin stole with all the dots in the right place," he told The Independent.
Church leaders seemed receptive to the idea.


"We are aware that we cannot keep killing this animal, and yet we cannot stop using leopard skins," said Mkululeko Mthathwe, a spokesman for the Nazareth Baptist Church. "[The synthetic fur] seems to be a good solution. Our church has grown phenomenally and it is true that nature cannot keep up with the demand from our followers."


No one knows how many leopards remain in Africa, but Dickerson says reasonable estimates place the population at under 4,000. Dickerson says the fake fur will boost the textile industry, provide a cheaper alternative to poached pelts and help save a species.

 

[CarlS]

That is like asking an American Indian to use fake eagle feathers.

 

[Doug]

If an eagle loses a feather,another will grow. Unfortuneately the same does not apply to leopard skins.

 

[DaveM]

There is a lot of tradition around them using the real stuff but I bet Gromit can fill us in with this. I fully agree the killing of a Leopard for trophies just does not sit well for me. I have a school friend that runs a game ranch and he has tourists coming from other countries just to shoot leopards :y8:

 

[otherwise]

There is a lot of tradition around them using the real stuff but I bet Gromit can fill us in with this. I fully agree the killing of a Leopard for trophies just does not sit well for me. I have a school friend that runs a game ranch and he has tourists coming from other countries just to shoot leopards :y8:

I'll pay twice the going leopard rate to shoot your old school friend if that can finish the leopard skin trade.

 

[devo]

I'll pay twice the going leopard rate to shoot your old school friend if that can finish the leopard skin trade.

I'll load the gun for you

 

[hemibee]

I wonder if I could put some fake leopard skins on some hogs around here and have those folks come over here to pay me to shoot them.


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[DaveM]

I'll pay twice the going leopard rate to shoot your old school friend if that can finish the leopard skin trade.

Yeah I made it very clear on his Facebook page how I feel about it all, absolute disgrace.

 

[otherwise]

Personally I think to kill another living creature for a trophy is a barbaric act.
I'm not quite but almost a vegetarian. I'm happy with eggs and milk, fish go down easy but I eat very little read meat.

 

[DaveM]

I don't eat much red meat either mostly because I just don't like it much

 

[hemibee]

I don't eat much red meat either, I prefer mine with a little char on it and a good smoke ring.


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[Gromit]

Much as I'd love to see fake leopard skin being used instead of the real thing, it's not going to happen - at least not until our leopard are extinct. One of the prestiges of the leopard is because it is so difficult to hunt and kill - being able to kill such a magnificent creature is a sign of being a superior hunter/warrior, great power and strength of the hunter to the Zulu. The 'big five' in SA - elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion (male) and leopard - is not because of size, it's because these are the most difficult and dangerous animals to kill. Leopard skins are not supposed to be worn by just anyone - it used to be reserved solely for the royal member of the tribe - chiefs and kings. Then it became OK for superior warriors to wear a small piece of leopard skin as a loin cloth on their wedding day. A king can wear a whole leopard skin but a chief is only supposed to wear a headring made of leopard skin. The real tradition of the leopard skin and its significance has given way to a sort of zulu statement of 'wealth' equivallent to a Western person driving a Ferrari. This latest thing of everyone wearing leopard skin is linked to one specific church, a Zionist sect - and you will not believe the monetary worth of the church. When I was money-market dealer, we used to handle their annual collection made over the Easter period and do their CASH investing - staggering amount of money - so you can see how dressing as traditionally prestigiously has become linked with your standing in the church.
I grew up in Zululand and the only time I saw any leopard skin was when the village chief came to visit my mother to talk with the 'induna' (boss) - otherwise the traditional skins worn by everyone else was cattle hide and only top warriors could wear a tuft of cow-tails around their upper arm - everyone else wore a strip of hide with fur around their wrists and ankles.
Women never wear leopard skin ever - not for any reason.
Leopard and cheetah are my favourite cats but I can say that I'd admire the man who stalks a leopard and kills it with an assegai - not a bow and arrow. As a child, I'd listen to the most wonderful stories from our Induna and was awestruck beyond words - but those days are long gone. Now they set traps for the leopard, poison or shoot them. With the killing instruments made easier, leopard are being slaughtered wholesale.
My one brother in law is a BIG trophy hunter - sickens me to the core and I don't visit their house anymore. All the trophies on the wall just disgust me. When I want to see my sister, we arrange to meet at a restaurant or something but not at their house. And he has shot leopard in Namibia where the government do nothing to stop it at all.
Not to be a hypocrite - I have been on a few wild game hunts but these were supervised culls where the population of certain buck had become too much for the environment (like a game reserve) to sustain. Even elephant have to be occassionally culled but never, ever any of the big cats, especially leopard. No, I've never been on any cull other than buck (deer).
One of my clients died a number of years ago on a buffalo hunt - he shot and wounded the buffalo which then charged him, gored him, trampled him - game over.

 

[CarlS]

If an eagle loses a feather,another will grow. Unfortuneately the same does not apply to leopard skins.

It is not just dropped eagle feathers that are used... Though most American Indians today will not kill an eagle for its feathers.